Ryan Miller should make the St. Louis Blues better. Now it's time to see if it's first-Stanley-Cup-in-franchise-history better.

St. Louis, tied for second in the Western Conference with 84 points, acquired Miller and forward Steve Ott from the Buffalo Sabres on Friday for goalie Jaroslav Halak, winger Chris Stewart, a first-round draft pick in 2015, a third-round pick in 2016 and forward prospect William Carrier.

That's a lot of assets changing hands, and we'll get to them in a minute. The most relevant question, though, involves Miller and Halak — specifically, whether the former is better than the latter. General manager Doug Armstrong believes so — and so does Ott.

"This guy right here is the best goalie in the world," Ott said. "He has been our best player, our MVP in Buffalo in a tough, tough season. To have that opportunity to go along with Ryan for myself, I know how great he is. Both of us want to live up to expectations."

After news of the trade broke, plenty of people looked it up: Halak's career save percentage is .917, and Miller's is .916. Take the last five seasons into account, though, and Miller moves ahead, .920-.917. This season, it's .923-.917. Shot quality, and the degree to which it exists, is a contentious topic, but the Sabres are the worst team in the league, and the Blues one of the best. If it ever is going to come into play, it's here.

Considering that both guys have high-profile hot streaks in their past (Miller at the 2010 Olympics and Halak during the 2010 playoffs with Montreal), the biggest thing St. Louis bought might be durability: Halak has been healthy so far in 2013-14, but he was injured for most of last season and split time with Brian Elliott before that. Miller, at 33, is a workhorse, and his stats this season are back in line. Plus, he gets to join Olympics teammates David Backes and T.J. Oshie. Not bad.

"It's definitely humbling and flattering that they would make that kind of move and bring us in with the intention of giving them some help to push for a Stanley Cup," Miller said. "We're excited for the opportunity there. But also, it's about the responsibility we have to that organization to show up and get up to speed and compete as hard as we can to live up to the trade."

Then there's Ott, who can slide back into a complementary role after, out of necessity, taking on more responsibility with the Sabres. He's a physical player who's capable of playing wing or center and winning face-offs, and while he didn't positively impact puck possession this season, none of the Sabres have. He'll be playing against weaker competition and with better players in St. Louis.

So, looking at the Blues, on paper, and saying they're better now than yesterday is easy — and probably correct, though to which degree remains to be seen. Ultimately, their end of the trade will be judged on what happens in April, May and June, and what Miller does when they get there. All they have to do is beat (or avoid) some combo of the Blackhawks, Sharks, Kings and Ducks, and keep their shooting percentage up . Good luck with that.

That's not quite the case for Buffalo, where new general manager Tim Murray, a couple months after taking over a mess of a situation, continues to stockpile a) high draft picks and b) assets that can be flipped into high draft picks. If the Blues' end of the deal is a wait-and-see, the Sabres' end is a pretty obvious win with a slightly lower degree of difficulty. They don't need to worry about the playoffs or discriminate between assets. For them, this is a volume game, and they're killing it.

Stewart, an inconsistent power forward, could be on the move soon — potentially to the Ottawa Senators, where Murray worked for his uncle Bryan until earlier this season. Maybe Halak goes, too — the Minnesota Wild need a goalie.

"If somebody feels (Stewart is) a missing piece, then I have to talk about it, and the same with the goalie," Murray said.

Combine that with their presumed flip of Matt Moulson, and it's easy to see Buffalo with a half-dozen first-round picks (if not more) over the next two years, to go with the eight first- and second-round picks they had in the last two.